Join the Conversation

House OKs budget after bitter debate

6:34 a.m. EDT March 14, 2014

FRANKFORT – Following an acrimonious debate that lasted more than three hours and dealt as much with Obamacare as it did with money, the House approved the state budget bill largely on party lines Thursday evening.

The Democratic-controlled House voted 53-46 to approve the bill.

Rep. Jim Stewart of Flat Lick was the only Republican who voted for it.

Rep. Jim Wayne of Louisville was the only Democrat who voted no.

The bill now now goes to the Republican-controlled Senate, where it is bound be be changed during the final weeks of the legislative session.

Senate Republican leader Damon Thayer of Georgetown declined Thursday night to say how the Senate might change the bill or – as House Republicans failed to do Thursday – use it to reverse Gov. Steve Beshear's steps to implement the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

"We're not ready to reveal our strategy," Thayer said.

"But our decisions will soon become apparent."

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, said after the vote that House Republicans were "getting their marching orders from Washington."

He said he expected the Senate Republicans "will be a little bit more reasonable."

Key to the House Democrats' passage of the measure Thursday was a procedural tactic by their leadership that effectively blocked Republicans from presenting their amendments – including one to reverse Beshear's decision last year to expand Medicaid and create Kentucky's own health benefit exchange.

Twice, all of the chamber's 46 Republicans voted to suspend House rules to bring their amendments to the floor, but no Democrat voted with them, and the motions died because it takes 51 votes to suspend the rules.

Rep. Robert Benvenuti, R-Lexington, complained that an amendment offered by Rep. Joe Fischer, R-Fort Thomas, to reverse Beshear's embrace of the Affordable Care Act was important to consider.

"I'll call it Obamacare, Mr. Speaker, because it has nothing to do with health care, it has nothing to do with access to health care. It has to do with the government takeover of our health care system," Benvenuti said.

But many Democrats argued the act has opened access to health care to thousands of Kentuckians.

And twice, Rep. Rick Rand, the Bedford Democrat who chairs the budget committee, said the issue was a political diversion that risked a budget deadlock.

"We know what this is all about," Rand said.

"... It is Washington-style politics brought right here to Kentucky that we don't deserve.

" ... I think it's designed to stop the budget process – to shut the government down."

House Republican leader Jeff Hoover of Jamestown said Democrats were playing politics by avoiding an important policy debate related to the budget.

"We wanted to have a discussion on the issue. ... Forty million dollars for administrative costs to set up the (health care) exchanges.

"Does that have an effect on the people of this state?"

The end product passed by the House is very similar to the budget bill Beshear proposed in January.

Included in the House budget are:

• Beshear's proposed raises for state workers and teachers.

• His $2 billion in added debt for construction projects at universities and elsewhere.

• Restoration of funds cut from the child-care program last year.

But the House also retained Beshear's proposed 2.5 percent cut to funding of university operations, 5 percent cut to many state agencies and a deep cut for indigent care to University of Louisville Hospital.

Rand argued the bill did many good things in the face of limited state resources, such as providing raises for teachers and state workers for the first time since 2008.

But Wayne, an advocate for tax reform that raises revenue, said he voted no because of those cuts, which come on top of prior cuts to education and other priority programs.

"Until we face the reality that we have to have an adequate, fair, flexible tax system that's going to pump money into our state ... we'll continue this downward spiral," Wayne said.

But many Republicans complained that the budget calls for borrowing nearly $2 billion and does not cut spending enough.

"We have a budget before us that you're being asked to vote for that increases spending, increases taxes, increases borrowing. I think that should cause everyone in here to pause," said Rep. Stan Lee, R-Lexington.

Hoover complained about how the House version of the budget gave responsibility to fund a diabetes education program to the Agriculture Department of Republican Commissioner James Comer and that the budget imposes new fees on community college students to fund new buildings.

"That's our responsibility to fund those buildings. It's not fair to those students," Hoover said.

But Rep. John Will Stacy, D-West Liberty, defended the budget as a strong effort with limited resources.

"What's your plan?" he repeatedly shouted at Republican critics.

After the Senate's changes, the bill goes to a House-Senate conference committee that will resolve differences between the two bills.

The budget must pass by midnight April 15 – the deadline set in the Kentucky Constitution for the session to end. ■